Who Stares Back?
by Vasuki
Summary: Naruto has a problem, and there's virtually nothing he can do about it. Trying to withstand the frightening changes in his own personality as he begins his life as a ninja, how will the blond fight what's warping him from the inside?


A/N: I'm back! As before, expect nothing even resembling a steady update schedule, I just wanted this teaser up so I could feel like I was accomplishing something.

I have a clearer idea of where I want this to go than I had with Tongues, and hopefully this will keep my ADD at bay longer than that fiasco. I haven't even started the real first chapter yet, but I will as soon as this is posted, like I said, Tease.

--

They were still coming. It seemed like hours had passed since he started running through the dark, damp labyrinth, and Naruto had yet to be able to shake his shadowy pursuers. This place was playing havoc with his mind, it felt like he'd been running forever, yet he wasn't growing weary at all. He was always just far enough ahead of the shadows to not be able to get a good look at them, but never able to gain enough of a lead to lose them, it was endless.

It continued on, this endless game of cat and mouse, of predator and prey. Naruto just wanted to stop, to be safe, but stopping meant something horrible, the blonde knew that in the depths of his soul. He couldn't stop; all he could do was keep running. There was little time for rational thought, only primal fear and the instinct to survive as the boy continued to run.

He didn't know how much time had passed since he started, but it seemed as if he'd run through so much sewer that he couldn't possibly still be anywhere near Konoha. Or maybe he'd simply been running in circles all this time, he hadn't been paying too much attention to his surroundings. Risking a look back, the shadows were still there, just beyond his sight. Veering a sharp left, the blonde realized in horror that he'd turned down a dead end. He knew he was done for now, there was nowhere else to run.

As he neared the end of the long passage however, the boy's spirits lifted, there was a door! Not even stopping the boy ran right into the wooden double doors with his shoulder, throwing himself into the room while the heavier than expected doors slammed into the walls with an audible crack. Looking up however, the boy nearly broke down and cried.

On the far side of the room was a row of giant metal bars. There were no other exits. He was still trapped.

Turning to face the inevitable, the boy tried to fight back his tears as the shadows began to bear down on the still open doors. As the first shadow crossed the threshold, Naruto couldn't help but think about how sad the old man would be when he found out that he was dead, and then he could no longer keep the tears from falling.

Without warning, the shadow seemed to be blasted into nothingness mere feet from his body, sending motes of blackness flying past his shocked face as they were carried forward by the thing's momentum. The shadows still in the hall were obliterated at the same instant as the first, ripped apart by a burst of power that dropped Naruto to his knees.

It was behind him. In the cage. He could feel the thing moving, but he couldn't do a thing, frozen in place by the pressure of this things incredible power. Eyes darting everywhere, he tried to get up, he tried to run, but it was no use. There was no escaping this one. All his instincts screamed to run as sweat and tears poured down his body. He had run from one group of predators into a bigger, meaner predator. He was going to die.

Then it spoke.

"_**...Turn...**_"

He couldn't disobey, it was impossible. His body shifted seemingly on its own, standing and turning to face the cage. Naruto stared straight ahead at an eye. It stared down at him, seeming to radiate a malicious red light. It bored straight through him, seemingly taking into account every possible factor of his own existence. It was an oppressive, violating stare that left him with an urge to vomit. He didn't know how he knew, but this thing had just seen his very soul, and it made him sick.

"_**You and I have many things to discuss boy, come a little closer and take a seat, we may be here for some time...**_" Naruto did as commanded, if this thing wanted to talk then he was going to talk, to disobey would mean death. He could practically feel the twisted smile on the thing as it began to speak.

"_**It's nice to finally meet you, so please, tell me about yourself...**_"

This thing didn't need him to tell it anything, it had already seen into his soul, it knew all there was to know about Uzumaki Naruto. Realizing it was growing impatient with Naruto's silence however, the boy began to speak.

"Um... My name's Uzumaki Naruto... n-nice to meet you." The boy hardly thought anything about this meeting was nice, but the last thing he wanted to do right now was offend this...being that stood before him.

The thing grinned.

--

"How is he doctor?" Asked the sandaime hokage.

"He's fine physically, the genjutsu seems to have had no lasting residual effect. As for his mental state, we won't be able to tell until he wakes up. Most ninja come out of these things a little shaken, but are generally fine after a few days. With a child this young however..." The doctor assigned to Naruto's care left his statement unfinished, both he and the Hokage were well aware that the boy might not be the same when he woke up. Excusing himself, he left the room and conferred briefly with a nurse before disappearing down the hallway.

The old Hokage turned to the other occupant of the room, a chuunin by the name of Yuuhi Kurenai, as she sat by the boy's bed, tear tracks still visible on her exhausted face. She hadn't left his side for more than an hour or two at a time in the four days since the boy had been admitted into the hospital.

The old man sighed, he understood her guilt, but it was largely unnecessary. "You should go home Kurenai-chan, there's nothing we can do now except wait for him to wake up."

The young woman stubbornly shook her head. "No, this was my fault, if I had been more observant this wouldn't have happened."

"Mistakes happen Kurenai, just be grateful it was you who made the mistake, and not one of your more physical teammates." Kurenai nodded at this. She was the only member of her team attempting to capture the cloud ninja, the rest of her team was too busy trying to stab them or burn them to a crisp. If Naruto had gotten caught in the middle of one of those fire techniques...

Her thoughts were interrupted by the onset of a particularly large yawn, and she realized just how tired how she was. The hokage's words were looking very appealing right now.

"I suppose you're right. I'll be heading home now, but please... let me know when he wakes up." With that the red-eyed kunoichi rose from her seat, and after giving a quick bow to the Hokage, left the hospital room.

Now alone with the unconscious boy, the hokage relaxed, taking the chair the kunoichi had just vacated for himself. It had been a long day. When word had made it to him that the heir to the Hyuuga clan had been kidnapped, he immediately sent a unit to pursue, and sent a unit of anbu to secure the delegation from cloud until they could ascertain who was responsible.

The group from Kumogakure had been there to negotiate a treaty to put an end to the war that had been raging between their two villages for some time now. The third great shinobi war had finally been winding down, and kumo was the last of konoha's enemies that they were still actively at war with, the most hot-blooded adversary of their village. If the delegation sent to finally put an end to the war were the ones responsible, it would have had dire repercussions.

Unfortunately or fortunately, they had been unable to capture any of the ninja fleeing the scene, what they did have was the corpse of the jounin leader of the delegates from cloud, his heart burst apart from the jyuuken strike of Hyuuga Hiashi. Had they caught any of the cloud ninja alive, it could very well have thrown the two nations back into war with one another, but as it was, there was still a chance for peace, even if the cloud were dealing in a rather unscrupulous fashion.

The kumo delegates had the nerve to accuse Hiashi of murdering their leader in cold blood, and responded to the evidence of kidnapping as a plot to pass the blame on to hidden cloud. They had absolutely refused to sign the treaty until one last concession was made. They had demanded the corpse of Hyuuga Hiashi as repentance.

Obviously they couldn't agree to such terms, the clan leader of the Hyuuga absolutely could not be given up to the enemy. Kumo had sought the byakugan for years, and they were willing to risk open war once again to get it.

So a plan was hatched and executed. The treaty was signed, and the delegation wouldn't find out that they had been fooled until they made it back to their home village. Hyuuga Hizashi had made the ultimate sacrifice for his clan and his village. The old Hokage had stopped by the Hyuuga compound earlier in the day to stress the nobility of his father's actions on a young Neji, but he doubted he got through to the boy, still in shock over his father's death.

The sounds of celebrating could be heard wafting through the windows from the village below. The announcement that the treaty had been signed and that the war was over was met with an enthusiasm Sarutobi hadn't seen in his people in years. It would have been infinitely refreshing, if not for the state of the young boy in the bed in front of him.

Kurenai had been one of the ninja sent after the group of ninja fleeing the scene, with orders to capture as many as possible. She had attempted to circle ahead and capture them in a genjutsu as they passed while her teammates corralled them into position, but she had been so rushed that she hadn't concealed herself well enough, and the enemy was able to notice her and jump out of the range of her technique before she could catch them. What she hadn't seen was the boy on the forest floor below her, staring up in awe at the "awesome ninja moves" as he would put it, on display. He was the only one she caught in the techniques sphere of influence, and he hadn't taken it well, simply crumpling to the ground unconscious. That was not unexpected, as it was part of the technique. What was worrying was that the jutsu's effect was supposed to last between one to three hours, depending on the willpower of the victim.

Naruto had been asleep for eighty.

With his face in his hands, the old Hokage simply watched him sleep, the steady rise and fall of his chest the only real indication that he was still alive. It wasn't fair, for such an unfortunate thing to happen to a child who already had to put up with so much in his life.

Suddenly Naruto began to stir, and the old man was immediately at the boy's side, hitting the button to call for a nurse. As the young blonde's eyes began to slowly open, Sarutobi felt that something was off, something wrong with those eyes, but it couldn't have lasted more than half a second as the boy's eyelids shot open the rest of the way and the cheerful cerulean orbs the old man had come to love seeing full of happiness were fully revealed, and the blonde launched himself from the bed to tackle the old man in a hug.

The old Hokage simply held him as Naruto began to cry into his robes, not even noticing the IV he had ripped out of his wrist as he leapt from the bed. The boy was sputtering incoherent gibberish about never seeing the old man again and how the shadows were going to drown him in sewer water. It took the old man a few seconds to connect that the shadows were part of the technique Kurenai had used, and he began to understand Naruto's outburst. Such an experience would have been very difficult on a child his age with no prior knowledge of how illusions worked.

"It's alright Naruto, you're safe, you were never in any danger..." Sarutobi noticed the boy seemed to tense for a fraction of a second at this, before once again resuming his bawling.

It wasn't long before the nurse arrived, probably only a little less than a minute after the button had been pressed. Slow, but not threateningly so. She quickly noticed the blood spilling onto the floor and the hokage's robes where the IV needle had made its exit, and she quickly took hold of the boy's wrist and whispered calm assurances into his ear as she bandaged him up while he tried to stop his crying. He had once told the old man that boys should be tough and not cry in front of girls. The man smiled at the memory.

It wasn't long before the boy fell back asleep, after having quickly wasted all his limited energy in that short, energetic burst of emotion. Relief washed over the hokage at last. The war was over, the situation with kumo resolved, and Naruto seemed to be alright. Things would finally be normal and peaceful again.

Unknown to him, was that peace would be something Uzumaki Naruto would have to fight with everything he had to obtain.


End file.
